Healing the Healer
by AnimeQueen5525
Summary: A GaaSaku AU fic. Side pairings are NaruHina, NejiTen, ShikaTema, ChouIno, and a SasukexOC pairing. Luna Hughesu is my Naruto OC.
1. Chapter 1

It was a typical day in town. Naruto Uzumaki bought ramen, Chouji Akimichi beat someone at an eating contest, Shikamaru Nara lied around like the lazy ass he was, and Sakura Haruno sat on her balcony, looking up at the sky, hoping that something exciting would happen to her.

It was a small village, in a large clearing in a small forest on the edge of a desert. They never got many visitors, not even from their sister town that was in the middle of the desert. Therefore, I can understand why Sakura Haruno wouldn't want to wait around and live her life every single day like the day before. All the girls there wanted a change; the guys just didn't care.

So Sakura walked down to the Yamanaka flower shop that day at about noon to have lunch with her friends, Ino Yamanaka (the manager of the shop), Hinata Hyuuga, Luna Hughesu, and Tenten.

"Sakura!" shouted Ino as Sakura walked into the shop, "You're late again!"

"I know, I know…" she said at a sigh, "I was just thinking again…"

"Thinking?" asked Luna, "You said that yesterday, but now I'm wondering; what exactly are you thinking about, Sakura?"

Sakura blushed. "It's nothing, don't worry about me."

"I know what she's thinking about." Said Tenten, "She's thinking about getting a different life, isn't that what we all want to happen?"

"Of course!" said Ino, "who likes this dull and boring town, anyway?"

"Nobody." said Hinata with an unusual felling of confidence in her voice, as she was always shy.

Sakura rolled her eyes as she sat down; they had this same conversation every day.

"You know what you should do, Sakura?" said Luna, passing her a plate of rice cakes, "You should go to the town in the desert and see if life's exciting there."

"Yeah!" said Ino, "Not only will you find a more exciting life, you may find that special man you've been looking for!"

"Ino's right, Sakura." said Tenten, who was sipping her tea. "We've all got boyfriends and you don't. Even Shikamaru's got a girlfriend; she lives in the desert town, though."

Sakura glared at Ino, and said, "Gee, that sure makes me feel better." She said with sarcasm in her voice, also muffled out by the rice cake she was chewing on.

"You should go, Sakura…" said Hinata, "You deserve a better life than we do…"

Sakura gave her a puzzling look, "and why is that?"

Luna laughed slightly and said, "Because you have the worst life out of all of us."

Sakura looked at her, "and this is coming from someone whose parents are dead?"

"Just think about it for a second, Sakura." Luna told her, offering another rice cake, "You don't have a boyfriend, you don't know what you're going to do with your life, and you really have no relevant purpose so far, which is sad for a pretty 16-year-old girl like you!"

Sakura pouted, "And what are you guys going to do with your lives?"

"I'm probably going to be stuck in this flower shop my entire life." said Ino.

"I'd like to be a nurse…" whispered Hinata.

"I don't really know, all I want to do is study Science." said Luna with a rice cake in her mouth.

"Same for me." said Tenten, gesturing to Luna.

Sakura had a slight look of shock on her face, "Wow, you guys really have your lives set for you, don't you?"

They glanced at each other and then looked back at Sakura before saying, "Pretty much." All at once.

Sakura was sitting in her room now. She had two packed bags with her; one with her clothes and bathroom essentials and another with her material possessions. She looked out the window of her bedroom for one last time before she left on the train for the desert.

"Sakura!" her mother shouted, "You're going to miss your train if you don't leave soon!"

She jumped off of her bed, grabbed her bags, and walked out to the train station.

Now she was on her way to a different life; a life that would change not only her, but the ones around her. As she rode the train into the depths of the hot and dry desert, she wondered, _am I going to an oasis or a ghost town?_


	2. Chapter 2

The train rumbled along the tracks as the scenery outside the window slowly faded from a beautiful forest into a seemingly lifeless desert. A girl by the name of Sakura Haruno with short, pink hair that came just above her shoulders sat in the middle of the almost empty train.

Including Sakura, there were only four passengers. First, sitting next to the door to the train, was a fat man asleep under a newspaper, then, way behind him was an old woman that was sleeping away (she almost looked dead), there was, of course, Sakura Haruno, and behind Sakura was a blond girl – not too older than she was – with turquoise eyes and her hair pulled back into four pineapple-shaped pony tails.

A few hours into the ride, the blond girl sat down next to Sakura and asked her, "Are you Sakura Haruno?"

Sakura didn't know her, and turned and gave her a puzzled look, and shakily replied, "Y-yes…I am…"

The girl held out her hand for Sakura to shake. "I'm Temari – Shikamaru Nara's girlfriend. He told me to meet you here. Nice to meet you!"

Sakura smiled and shook Temari's hand. "Nice to meet you, too!"

"If you need any help getting around town, I'm here to help you."

Sakura nodded, "Thank you, Temari." She said with a smile.

After that Sakura and Temari started talking and acting like…well…teenage girls. While they were having their girly chats, time passed quickly, and they were in the desert town in no time.

The town was truly beauty in the middle of nowhere. It was an oasis surrounded by tall mountains with springs at the top, pouring water into lakes at the bottom.

"Wow!" said Sakura as she stepped out of the train, "It's so beautiful! I never expected to see something like this in the middle of a desert!"

Temari smiled. "I know, right?"

Temari took Sakura to the town's finest hotel, a three-floored building with a beautiful lobby that had several pictures of places in town.

"…and my father's the mayor here, did you know?" Temari said as she was telling Sakura about the village, "I live in an apartment, though. I share it with my two younger brothers…"

Sakura gave Temari a puzzled look. "Why do you live in an apartment?"

"Eh, I don't like the publicity." She said. "If everyone knew I was the mayor's daughter they'd never leave me alone…" she rolled her eyes as she strode off to get Sakura a room key.

So Temari bought Sakura's room (hey, she's the mayor's daughter, she has a lot of money!) and agreed to pay for everything Sakura needed (after Sakura told her not to about thirty times), and the entire way they were talking about things that you would only hear two girls talk about. Wow, that's interesting.

"So how did you meet Shikamaru?" Sakura asked as Temari finished ordering Chinese food from a local restraint.

"Shikamaru?" Temari blushed, "I met him a few years ago when my brothers and I spent contest money on a little trip to the forest. I kept in contact with him after that and…we just eventually became boyfriend and girlfriend, I guess…"

"What exactly to you see in him?" Sakura asked at a laugh. "He seems so lazy to me!"

Temari shrugged. "He'll pull his weight when he feels like it; he's not that lazy."

That morning when Sakura woke up in her hotel room, the sun was shining directly on her face. The light was what woke her; otherwise she would have been too worn out from the trip the day before to get up.

She walked down to the lobby for a few pancakes, and then purchased a newspaper and walked back up to her room on the second floor. She sat there reading the want adds for about two hours before deciding where to go.

"Alright…" she said to herself, "I'm going to the hospital. I'm going to ask for a desk job and work until I can get a scholarship to medical school. Then I'll train to become a doctor…yes, that's it…"

She knew what she was going to do; there was no stopping her for going after her goal. A few minutes later after changing her clothes and brushing her hair, Sakura left her room and went directly to the town's hospital.

The hospital, like every other building in town, was huge with three floors. Sakura successfully applied for a desk job as secretary for an office for three doctors on the third floor; two middle aged men, whose names Sakura never got a glimpse at when she received the job (they aren't going to do anything in this story, anyway.) and a very elderly woman by the name of Chiyo. (This is the one you should worry about.)

So Sakura sat at her desk doing almost nothing for about three hours while she watched the two male doctors run in and out all morning long without even talking to her; she hadn't even seen the elderly woman yet.

At about noon the elderly woman walked into the office. She was the same dead-looking woman Sakura had seen on the train yesterday.


End file.
